This stock shorting issue just gets weirder and weirder.
You wrote, "I think this sums it up in a nut shell.
bobz.com;
I think you might accentuate the "nut" part of it, since not a single sentence in that site makes sense (putting aside its incomprehensibility on a basic English level--"justly compensation [sic]").
I saw Harvey Pitt take a question on this issue from a Congressman on TV and just try to deftly sidestep it.
Do you know what the author of the nutshell thing is saying, and can it be put into plain English?
All the rhetorical, conspiracy questions (why don't newsletters, every IR and PR support it, are they really shorters? sort of stuff) just get pretty silly.
What possibly is the point about referrring to the 33 Act's 17(b):
17(b)"It shall be unlawful for any person, by the use of any means or instruments of transportation or communication in interstate commerce or by the use of the mails, to publish, give publicity to, or circulate any notice, circular, advertisement, newspaper, article, letter, investment service, or communication which, though not purporting to offer a security for sale, describes such security for a consideration received or to be received, directly or indirectly, from an issuer, underwriter, or dealer, without fully disclosing the receipt, whether past or prospective, of such consideration and the amount thereof." (15 U.S.C. ?77q(b).)
Finally, the article someone cited stated, as correctly as journalists can know at this time, that the total put profits from the UAL and AA puts might be $10 million.
sfgate.com
Hardly $billions, but then again hyperbole is so nice to throw around when uncertainty reigns.
Finally, I don't know why this area has captured my interest except intellectually for the moment. I'm long a few issues (PG MO KFT some others), short a few issues (since August: HOV, TOL, AHMH, RYL, KWK PENG EVG), and about 80% in cash (why? well, valuation of this market for one). I wouldn't feel comfortable shorting here now, but if the Naz ran up a couple of hundred points I'd probably short some of the high fliers (through my CSFB account, and only on short available stocks, of course--the last thing a securities lawyer would like to do is run afoul of the securities laws). My guess is most people who are gunned up over this "petition" have never shorted a name in their lives, and perhaps simply have been recently playing with fire in their 401K's.
In searching for someone to blame for the falling markets, rather than look at the gaping valley of uncertainty which 9/11 caused, added to the witch's brew of the busted bubble, people are looking to short selling as the scapegoat. The same thing happened in 1929, when in fact it was margin-based speculation which caused the bubble. I believe you could look that up.
These boards are most interesting when people stop and think things through, instead of succumbing to sloganeering.
Just a private investor's opinion, of course.
Kb |
